I’ve never been a huge fan of Kings of Leon- I’ve always meant to listen to their stuff, I just never had. So when people say that this new album is a lot darker than their previous work, I believe them, I just don’t have a lot to go by because this is the only album I’ve listened to. The brothers Followill (and cousin) definitely have a ton of talent and the chops to pull something amazing off- but they don’t do it here.

“Because of the Times” is a decent album, but a good chunk of it is so ridiculously obnoxious at times that it ruins itself. It starts out with “Knocked Up” a great song that’s a folk rock type of thing that has a Neil Young kind of style to it. It’s one of the few must-listens on this album. Then there’s “Charmer”… for the love of God stop screaming… whoever’s screaming- please stop. That’s all I have to say about that. About every six seconds in the track somebody goes WAAAAAAA in a high pitched wale and it scares the crap out of you. My advice to you is not to listen to this track on a full stomach. Luckily, the album quickly recovers with two great tracks “On Call” and “McFearless.” They’re both slower paced tracks with big sweeping sounds to them- they’re not anything spectacular but they’re good. That’s actually a pretty decent way to describe the whole album- it’s good but it’s not great.

A large chunk of this can be skipped, but a large chunk of this also demands to be listened to. This isn’t a complete album so it loses points for that but Kings of Leon manages to put out another good disc to appease their fans at home and abroad.